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9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Loving Oneself, And Forgiveness, Should Never Be So Hard, 30 January 2004
7/10
Author: TemporaryOne-1 from Orlando, Florida, USA

Stella is a young, alienated woman who is trapped by the tricks of her mind. She is driven into a life of prostitution by her mysterious past, which unfolds for the viewers in fractured, painful memories. Fragments of her childhood invade her present state of living, taking her back into a past which she longs to escape. She dreams of a redemption that will scourge her of her tortured memories, and allow her to live a new life, with her new-found love, Eddie. As she finally begins to break free of her past, Eddie's own tricks (drug use, prostitution) threaten to destroy their thread-bare happiness. Loving oneself, and forgiveness, should never be so hard.

Kelly McDonald (Stella) and Hans Matheson (Eddie) give stand-out performances in this feature debut by director Corky Giedroyc. McDonald and Matheson are sensitively waif-like, vulnerable, and utterly embraceable, as two down-trodden, drug-addicted prostitutes attempting to make the best of their young, shattered lives. Their emotional facial expressions comprise the bulk of writer A.L. Kennedy's concise dialogue. Giedroyc chose to film Stella amongst the squalid streets of Prague, slashing the scene-scapes with a distorted use of chiaroscuro, and real addict-prostitutes, whom the actors worked with prior to filming. This gives Stella Does Tricks an authentic ambiance of desperation, alienation, loneliness, and despair.



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7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Earnest, sincere reality film out of the UK, 1 March 2002
6/10
Author: George Parker from Orange County, CA USA

"Stella Does Tricks" tells of a Scottish teen female's struggle to escape a life of prostitution. Sans the glitzy appointments of the usual tinsel town fare and exploitive sex and nudity usually accompanying the subject matter, this austere film focuses on the real problems of the principle; addictiveness of easy money, low self esteem from childhood abuse, etc. With excellent performances all around, especially by Mcdonald (Stella), this film's only flaw is annoying dreamlike flashbacking which is too often ambiguous in an attempt to be poetic. Good stuff for those into sincere, earnest, hardworking reality pix about the socially disenfranchised.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Thought provoking, 7 November 1998
9/10
Author: annA

I live in a collage like set up with 45 others, and was watching this with 4 people in the common room. By the end of the movie though, there was about 20 people in the room in uproar about the film, what it portrays, who was wrong, who was right, drugs, sex - everything! It's just one of those movies that everyone has an opinion on. The movie follows the life of an underage prostitute. There are basically two stories shown at once in the movie - one showing why she is like she is, and one showing what she is trying to do about it. Although there are not really any graffic sex sceens in the movie, it is more what is insinuated that might make it offensive to some. I recommend it to anyone who wants to see the darker side of the streets. The really scary thing about the movie is that the story was apparently inspired after inteviews with some underage prostitutes on the street! 9 out of 10.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
HALF-DECENT BRITISH FILM?, 23 October 2000
6/10
Author: kevin c from HERTFORD, England

The output from British studios has been mixed to say the least, over the past 3/4 years. This is worth a viewing. It is sluggish over the first 30 minutes, and lacks a narrative direction. However you become drawn into Stella's life and frequent mistakes. A tender movie that doesn't go for the cliche.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Disturbing and Delightful, 28 April 2000
7/10
Author: Andrew (ec43b@aol.com) from Birmingham/Inverness GB

This film is truly remarkable both in storyline and acting. Kelly MacDonald excels as under age prostitute Stella whilst James Bolam is creepily superb as her pimp. The story centres around Stella in London and her two roles as prostitute and outgoing young woman. There are also flashbacks of her childhood in Glasgow before she moved to London to become a prostitute. Sex scenes are not graphic but perhaps seem more disturbing due to this. This film is a truly thought provoking delight covering many sub plots including drugs. Well worth a look

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4 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Thought provoking, 7 November 1998
9/10
Author: annA

I live in a collage like set up with 45 others, and was watching this with 4 people in the common room. By the end of the movie though, there was about 20 people in the room in uproar about the film, what it portrays, who was wrong, who was right, drugs, sex - everything! It just one of those movies that everyone has an opinion on. The movie follows the life of an underage prostitute. There are basically two stories shown at once in the movie - one showing why she is like she is, and one showing what she is trying to do about it. Although there are not really any graffic sex scenes in the movie, it is more what is insinuated that might make it offensive to some. I recommend it to anyone who wants to see the darker side of the streets. The really scary thing about the movie is that the story was apparently inspired after interviews with some underage prostitutes on the street! 9 out of 10.

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Thought provoking and disturbing, 6 January 2002
6/10
Author: eclipsse (eclipsse@lineone.net) from Yorkshire, England

I thought this was one of those films you simply have to see with someone else - to go over it afterwards.

Although rambling in places, I found the lead characters were mesmerising, in that you simply had to watch to find out what happened. James Bolam, in particular, was disturbingly nasty as the pimp, showing an incredible characterisation. As I have only seen him in light comedy before, I wondered whether he was suitable for such a gritty drama - and he proved eminently so!

Overall, a disturbing film due to the subject matter, but a very well acted and presented drama which leaves an enduring impression in the mind after the film ends - one of the marks of a good film, to me.

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
more than cliches about underage prostitution, 8 May 1999
7/10
Author: eae from Kelowna B.C. Canada

Stella is victimized, but uses her anger to fight becoming a victim. "You don't know who I am," she tells her pimp, who has given us every reason to think that his stereotypical view of her is complete. Through flashbacks to daydreams, Stella's life has been an escape from harsh reality. Will she be able to pull off her best trick - going straight?

Lots of surprises from the casting and portrayal of Stella's pimp to her visit with her father. I wish her well.

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2 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
I'm just not sure, 9 August 2001
Author: Lisa Leone from Santa Ana, CA

I saw this film on cable last night. I really wanted to like it because I like Hans Matheson and Kelly Macdonald, but when it was over, I felt disappointed. I think my biggest pet peeve is that the filmmakers spent too much time trying to drive home the point that Stella was molested as a child (after the third flashback, even the dumbest audience member understands) and too little time developing the characters. I would have liked to know more about why Eddie is the way he is, and why Stella latches on to him as opposed to, say, one of her older Johns who isn't a drug addict. Perhaps it was intentional that the only person we get to know is Stella, because that way we can see just how messed up and confusing her life is. I'm just not sure.

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4 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
inferior riff on ANGEL needs subtitles for hideous UK ghetto dialect, 3 May 2002
1/10
Author: 12-string from United States



Artsy Brit tv movie deals with the life and fantasies of a mature-looking teen prostitute on the streets of some urban combat zone in the UK. She has a pimp who treats her like a daughter, a father who treats her like a whore, a junkie b.f., and a few pounds in a postal savings account. But her life isn't all rosy. She has a thing about fire. Film tells what happens to her when she goes on her own.

Overall result is not especially rewarding. The 1984 US film ANGEL ("high school honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night!") provided more coherent narrative and a vastly more satisfying treatment of similar material. If it's supposed to be a surprise that Stella has a sexual history with her father, it's telegraphed from their first scene together. The rest of the pic is just a wait to see what she's going to do about it. Otherwise, there's no onscreen evidence the writer got a passing grade in Plotting 101. This one seems to owe a lot in style and concept to the work of Dennis Potter (you have been warned), with bizarre fantasy and drab reality interspersed.

As a native speaker of American English, I would have been completely lost in this picture without the assistance of closed captioning. (Let's not hear anything more, *ever*, from the Brits about how we in the USA butcher the language, OK?) Accents and diction featured here make Belfasters sound like BBC news readers. Worst offender is lead Kelly Macdonald, of whose dialogue literally nothing is intelligible except the "f**k" or "f**king" she uses 2 or 3 times per sentence. The Celtic lilt is rather nice, though; does she ever work in English-language productions?

Direction and script are both much too artsy, tech credits are excellent at displaying the scabby underside of the UK, and the performers do what they can with the material. Atmosphere is plenty grubby and sleazy but no nudity or graphic sex is featured, which is overall a big plus for the production, though rather a surprise from a Brit TV movie.

On the IMDb meter I give this a 1, regretful that the scale does not include a 0 option. As Stella herself might have put it, "Gnghh f**k tnscrfa qpsllv f**king aqng mbzarky." Or something like that. You'll have to imagine the Celtic lilt.

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